ACM North Central North America 
Regional Programming Contest

Sponsored by IBM

Problem Clarifications

Ordered by problem number and time of posting

Problem 1 - Are We There Yet?

No clarifications

Problem 2 - Fast Times at Ridgemont's Planet

No clarifications

Problem 3 - Symbolic Mathematics

No clarifications

Problem 4 - Gray Code

Clarification 1 (11:30 AM)
Q. May we use the Java BigInteger class in our solution?
A. No. The Java BigInteger class may not be used in solutions to this problem.
Clarification 2 (11:30 AM)
Q. Should the second line of output for each case read "n = ..." or "N = ..." ? That is, should there be a capital N or a lowercase n used?
A. The second line of output for each case should read "N = ...". That is, capital N should be used, not lowercase n. "k" and "g" should be as shown, however—in lowercase.
Clarification 2 (12:59 PM)
Q. In the Input section, should the limit on the range of values for k be 0 to 2N-1 or 0 to 2N-1?
A. The range of values for k should be 0 to 2N-1. That is, if N was 10, then k will be between 0 and 1023, as is illustrated in the third sample input case.

Problem 5 - Change by Mass

Clarification 1 (11:30 AM)
Q. What is/are File cents (as used in the table) ?
A. Who knows? This should really be Five cents.

Problem 6 - Relative Paths

Clarification 1 (11:30 AM)
Q. In The Problem section and the Input section the problem mentions the absolute path. Should this be an absolute path?
A. Yes. The second line of the input data for each case will contain an absolute path, not the absolute path.

Problem 7 - Inverse Triangular Numbers

No clarifications

Problem 8 - I'll be Round About

Clarification 1 (11:30 AM)
Q. What is the distance travelled in a roundabout if the entry and exit angles are the same?
A. No U-turns are allowed at the entrance to a roundabout. To enter and exit at the same angle, the driver must go all the way around—360 degrees.

Problem 9 - Jill and Phil's Palindromic Peregrinations

No clarifications

Problem 10 - Pavement Signage

Clarification 1 (11:30 AM)
Q. Can you clarify the scaling to be performed relative the to the plane P (in the figure) and the region on the road labeled "sign" ?
A. Yes. Add the following after the Thus the sign ... in the figure. sentence.
In other words, scale the maximum y value to be 100% of P, and smaller y values to appropriate percentages of P, and display the corresponding length of the distance labeled sign in the figure.

Clarifications will be used to amend the text of the published problem statements after the contest. These will appear on the regional website.